powerful instinct we have, it is clear that the virtue of chastity is going to play a very important role in the development, not only of the individual, but also of the family and of society in general. So how are chastity and modesty related? Just as modesty should guide our external behaviour with proper decorum – the way we dress, sit, stand, walk, talk, in a word, all our actions – so it is that modesty is the guardian of chastity in all our thoughts, words and deeds. St Thomas says that while chastity helps regulate the most difficult things (the powerful passions and strong desires for pleasure, whose proper end is procreation), modesty regulates that of the easier things, the remote and proximate occasions that may then lead to unholy desires.13 It is modesty that foresees threatening danger, forbids us to expose ourselves to risk, and demands the avoidance of those occasions. The situation that you experienced on the night of that party was a lesson in the importance of modesty and how it safeguards chastity. I will expand on this in more detail below, but briefly for now, I hope you realise that when you made the choice of wearing that dress, you made the choice of putting aside modesty. When modesty was put aside in dress, immoderation in other behaviours will easily follow (in this situation, it was the drinking of alcohol to silence the voice of reason and conscience). When modesty is weakened, unchaste words, deeds and actions are invited in freely. Even though, from what you have described, you did not have a malicious intention, the putting aside of modesty then prompted the unchaste looks from the opposite sex. It is for this reason that you felt so vulnerable and uncomfortable, because the admiration you were gaining was more than likely originating from the more base parts of the male gaze. Amanda, do not get discouraged. Rather, let that night be a lesson for you. The discomfort that you experienced was evidence that you do already possess an innate sense of Christian modesty, and that is why you felt like you wanted to leave and go home. Remember the lesson that you learned: it is modesty that safeguards chastity. Chastity is a beautiful, comely, attractive virtue, that inspires instinctive horror of all that could tarnish it. When it is encountered, it inspires awe and reverence. This is wonderfully expressed in the Book of Wisdom: O how beautiful is the chaste generation with glory: for the memory thereof is immortal: because it is known both with God and with men (Wis 4:1). Why is chastity so glorious 35
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